


Wins and Losses

by writingfromdarkplaces



Series: Never a Lady [4]
Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:34:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfromdarkplaces/pseuds/writingfromdarkplaces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The unusual friendship of the lord's son and the musician's daughter involves cards and drinking and a bit more that surprises them both.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wins and Losses

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I thought I was basically done with this universe. I mean, I had a few ideas for various things, but most of them didn't pan out and the first part stands well enough alone it doesn't need more, but here I am with another bit and not how this particular part was supposed to happen, but the characters do what they will.

* * *

“It will be expensive.”

“Why the frak is everything about money?” Kara grumbled, and across the table, Lee raised an eyebrow. She tried and failed not to laugh. He had a point, since she was about to throw another cubit on their pot. She didn't know when their game got this high stakes, but she did know he was the only one she'd ever met that kept up with her, and she'd seen plenty of men and women come and go in her mother's place.

“The way of the world,” Lee muttered. “Call.”

She looked at her hand and back at him. Sometimes she thought Lee should be easier to beat. He was a poor liar, didn't care about showing how unhappy he was with this life he lived, but then she _liked_ that part of him. He was one of the only people she knew that was honest and saw this whole thing for what it was—a bunch of lies hidden by so-called good manners.

“Full colors,” she said, setting down her cards.

Lee grunted. She leaned over to peek at his hand. “Four on a run. Not bad.”

He shrugged and shuffled his cards back into the deck. She watched him, fascinated by his hands. Lee did everything with precision, and though she'd heard his brother talk about how he'd been so wounded he couldn't move, it was hard to believe there was a time when Lee wasn't in motion.

“It's not like the world can always be about money, though.”

Lee reached for his drink. “Getting philosophical now, Thrace?”

“Aren't you supposed to say I don't know the meaning of the word?”

He snorted, fighting a smile. “I would, except what I know of poetry is that it's just as confusing as philosophy if not more so, and you definitely like poetry.”

She couldn't help the smile. “Some men seem to like poetry in bed.”

Lee choked on his drink. “Excuse me?”

“That was why my mother had the book,” she explained like she hadn't baited exactly that reaction from him. “Or did you think I meant something else?”

“Brat,” Lee said, throwing a cubit at her. She didn't duck, even when it went down her dress and lodged itself right against her chest. “You are going to have to work on that if you want to survive here, you know.”

“Work on what?”

“On not saying whatever inappropriate thing comes to your mind. Remember, it's all based on money, and your father has more than one daughter to marry off.”

“To sell off, you mean.”

Lee grunted, starting to deal out the cards. “If you insist on seeing it that way.”

“I do,” Kara said. Feeling bolder than she should, she leaned across the table. “I'm not getting married. I won't be sold. I'm not property.”

He looked at her. She hated those eyes sometimes. He saw too much. “Most people see you that way. Even the laws do. You don't have the right to vote, to own property of your own, to have money independent of your father or your husband—”

“Joke's on them,” she said, holding up the cubits. “I've got plenty, and they won't take it from me. I'd like to see them try.”

“They would. They have, and they will,” he warned, and she looked at him, trying to understand why he was being like this. Lee alternated between fun, lecture, and just plain moody, and while she preferred fun, she could take the lecture, knowing that in his messed up way he was showing he cared. Moody was what worried her. She didn't know how to handle moody.

“You wouldn't let them, would you?”

He snorted. “Like you want my protection.”

“I don't,” she agreed. “I just know I have it.”

He frowned. “What does that mean?”

She rolled her eyes. “Lee, where are you right now? Playing triad with me. Where are you most days? Riding with me. You don't even have to say you'd protect me—you're always there so it's implied. Because you're Lee. You're honorable, and most people don't dare whisper about me being your mistress despite all the time you spend with me.”

Lee stiffened, and he reached for his drink, downing the rest of it in one swig. She frowned as he stood, leaving the table and walking away from her.

“Lee? What is it?” Kara didn't want to ask because she knew she'd sound like some weak, pathetic girl who mooned over him—even if most of the women around here mooned over Zak or just Lee's title, not the man himself. “It's not a bad thing. I like spending time with you. You're the only one around here who is... real.”

“I didn't...” Lee stopped himself, leaning against the wall. “It's not that, Kara.”

“Then what?”

“I got orders today.”

Her stomach twisted, and she felt sick. She knew, in the back of her mind, that Lee was going to go back to the military. She'd been dreading it for a while because she knew it meant the end of riding—Viper was his horse—a war horse—and he would take him back to war with him, but she'd never thought it would hit this hard to hear him say he was going.

“When?”

“In the morning.”

Frak. “That's not any warning at all. Can't you wait a day or—”

“That's not how it works.”

She winced. “I know that, but you're still healing up, right? And you need time to finish, and you have to have some kind of obligations here because you're your father's son and heir and—”

“I have to go,” he said, and she couldn't tell how he felt about that. Maybe relieved. Maybe not. Lee could be impossible even for her to read, despite what Zak claimed about her knowing him best.

“And Viper?”

He shook his head. “Should have known you'd care about the horse.”

“You _are_ taking him, aren't you?”

Lee nodded. “He's a war horse. He's not meant for this place. It's not the only reason he lashes out at everyone, but it's part of it.”

“At least there's that,” Kara said, and Lee frowned at her. She swallowed and gave him a smile. “I'll know he's there to keep you safe that way.”

Lee eyed her with suspicion. “That sounds dangerously like you'd miss me, Thrace.”

“You're a frakking idiot,” she said, breaking all the rules of propriety and even of _them_ because they didn't touch, either, going to his side and putting her arms around him. “If you die out there, I will never forgive you.”

He leaned his head against hers. “Just don't get any crazy ideas about dressing up like a man and coming after me, and we'll be fine.”

“You know, that doesn't sound half bad—”

“No.”

“I bet I could make most people think I was a man—”

“Kara, no. Absolutely not.”

She looked at him. “Why not? I can fight. I can ride, and I can shoot, and it's not like you see me as a woman anyway—”

Lee kissed her. Not soft and chaste like the rules of etiquette here demanded, but passionate and a little rough like the ones she'd seen at the brothel. She hadn't thought she'd like kissing no matter who did it or how, but Lee was different, and this... It felt much better than it frakking should.

He pulled back. “No going to the front.”

“Hmm,” she said, not capable of anything else, and if Lee took that as a promise, that wasn't her fault. She hadn't actually agreed to anything.


End file.
